HN – Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

I'm in a weird situation. I'm a "freelance developer" with 1 client. That client is currently more than 12 months and $250k behind on payroll. They are presently on both on the verge of bankruptcy and projecting that an update I'm supposed to deliver tomorrow will generate 10M in revenue in the next year with silly growth beyond that. While their long term projections are a bit doubtful their short term projections are based on their customers' verifiable infrastructure commitments which are between 10x and 100x of the projected revenue.

I'm under intense pressure to deliver the update with the idea that it will enable them to generate enough money to pay off their debt, but this seems fundamentally wrong to me. Is there some other deal that we could work out quickly that would be fair to both parties and something that their board might agree to?

Ask HN: What to do when you have your employer over a barrel?

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